Teach Primary 18.8

Why your ELSA is so important Emotional School Based Avoidance has rocketed in primary schools since COVID. With parents working from home more than ever before, and our excellent awareness of mental health, children who find school difficult are often ending up staying at home. The Working Together guidance explains that you have to ‘make schools a place pupils want to be.’ For these children it is two-fold: reasonable adjustments and excellent emotional provision. The ELSA at my school is phenomenal. For many children, knowing she will be there to greet them, that they can take some time to acclimatise to school before going into the classroom, and that she will check-in with them, gets them through the door. Schools also have to find a way to make their offer unmissable. After a holiday and a week or more being on his own schedule, the thought of school did not always fill my son with joy. However, his infant school strategically placed a dress-up day, visitor or trip on the first day back after every break. This was the incentive he needed to get back through the gates, and I am sure it’s a big reason why his attendance has always been excellent. Checking the stats The need to keep track of trends in attendance can’t be underestimated. As well as regularly monitoring all the pupils of my school, I regularly get teachers at my door starting their sentence with, “I’ve noticed that…” They take note that a pupil is often out of school on the day they are at their mum’s, or that a child is always off on the same day as a sibling. That’s why attendance is everyone’s business. How have we tackled the attendance of our most vulnerable groups? Firstly, by building relationships and making the parents realise we want to work with them, and that it is because we have the best interests of their child at heart. I’ve often had to track down a parent on the playground or by their car, as they might also have anxiety around school. We regularly invite experts in anxiety or similar conditions into school to share tips and provide support for our parents. We’ve run a Monday morning breakfast club to help start the week positively for specific children. We create attendance plans alongside the children in KS2 and ask them what would help to improve Carrots or sticks? Schools are held accountable for the attendance of their pupils. It falls directly under the Behaviour and Attitudes judgement in the Ofsted framework. However, when you look at this in the cold light of day, it is an interesting concept. Personally speaking, the responsibility of my own children’s attendance doesn’t lie with the school they attend. It lies with me, their parent. I have a parental responsibility for my children to attend school regularly. Why should my children’s school get penalised for the role I have to play? However, as we know, this is not how things work in the world of education and schools must, and do, follow up on low attendance. MAKING IT PAY The government has just raised the fines for taking children out of school during term time to £80 from £60, but that is not going to deter many from having a cheaper holiday. The savings on bookings make paying the fine worthwhile. Some holiday companies are even actively promoting ‘term time breaks’! So, it could be said, the stick approach on attendance is taken with schools, but the carrot is there for parents. In November 2023, Amanda Spielman, the Ofsted Chief Inspector at the time, talked about a ‘fractured’ social contract between families and schools. One of the consequences being lower school attendance. She even added restoring this fractured contract could take years. I have not seen anything to suggest she was wrong in what she said. ON INEQUALITY The wider issue facing schools is the way low attendance disproportionally affects them. Some will have higher attendance due to the community they serve. Others will have the exact opposite. So, how is that a level playing field when looking at the amount of resources needed to tackle the issue? The simple answer is, it isn’t. Every child is entitled to a fulfilled education, leading to the best chances in life. In a perfect world, everyone would think similarly about the importance of education, and attendance in schools across the land would not be an issue, but we do not live in a perfect world. If children are not at school, they cannot learn. The more time children are off school, the less progress they are likely to make. And the less progress they make, the lower their grades will be. Meaning, finally, their life chances will be reduced. This doesn’t make for good reading, but unless there is a shift in the balance of responsibility and accountability to an equilibrium (between schools and parents), the carrot and stick method is unlikely to work. Ryan Duff is the CEO of Discovery Educational Trust. @HeliHeadteacher 38 | www.teachwire.net